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Panmure Gordon is asking its staff to relinquish their existing options packages in return for a new set of share awards, which the UK investment bank said would provide “positive incentivisation”, just months after the firm received considerable investment from a Qatari investment bank.

Employees in the UK and US are being asked to surrender options paid to them under Panmure Gordon’s existing compensation programmes and instead accept new options that are to be tied to the future performance of the firm.

These changes to the current incentivisation programme constitute a recognition by Panmure Gordon that the performance goals set for staff back in 2007 are unlikely to be met, and that the current options are so far out of the money that they provide little hope of any gain soon.

For instance, most of the company’s options have an exercise price in excess of 100p, however Panmure Gordon shares were last worth more than that back in late 2007 and currently trade at around 36p.

In a statement to the London Stock Exchange, Panmure Gordon said its performance plan reflected “vastly different market fundamentals”.

The change, if accepted by employees, will result in the surrender of about 8.5 million Panmure Gordon shares in return for 7 million new shares. The company declined to comment on the difference in value between the two programmes.

Back in May, Qatar’s largest investment bank, QInvest, handed Panmure Gordon £23m (€25.6m) in return for a 44% holding in the firm, following a three-way bidding war against former investment banker Bertrand des Pallieres’ SPQR Capital and London-based investor BlueGem.